Keith Richards Criticizes The Beatles' Live Performances

Keith Richards, in an interview with Radio Times, criticized the Beatles as a live band.

"Musically, the Beatles had a lovely sound and great songs. But the live thing? They were never quite there,” Richards said.

Richards also said in the interview, which was to promote the BBC2 documentary Keith Richards: The Origin of the Species, that while he enjoyed the friendship of the legendary Liverpool quartet, he felt it necessary to "excommunicate" them after they fell under the influence of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

“He was a fucking operator, a sucker job. But you have to think, what had being the Beatles done to the Beatles? They wanted somebody else to take them away," Richards said.

"They didn’t want to be 'god' any more, so they plugged it all onto the Maharishi.”